Re: [Cooker]GET READY FOR A DISCUSSION: Software

2000-06-01 Thread Guillaume Cottenceau 

Chmouel Boudjnah [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] writes:

> Just trying to pry into Mandrake's inner workings to appease my curiosity..
> 
> How do packages get updated?  Are package mantainers required to keep on
> freshmeat or application mailing lists for the packages they're responsible
> for?  Are there dedicated package maintainers for pieces of software?
> 
> I ask all these things because I have noticed that it seems like Mandrake is
> depending on posts from users to alert them to package updates.  This seems
> a little re-active, rather than pro-active, as a Linux distribution should
> be.

No we do NOT depend on posts from users for new versions. Please have a
look at the changelog list and compare the number of version updates to
the number of people pointing updates to us.

This happens only in two cases:

. a user is having a constant eye in a very particular package, or even is
part of the development team, and alerts us before we notice the update;
it will save, say, 1 or 2 days; actually it's not the useful

. a MandrakeSoft package maintener is not taking care of his packages.
unfortunately, it happens.. we're working on it, but currently the
packages are "distributed" and sometimes some guys are not happy with
that..

. we're in freeze and won't make version updates (this happens often!)


Roughly, the packages from the "main" are distributed to the developpers,
so we have two "jobs".

I've asked to have some dedicated "package mainteners", but it happens
that people get frustrated if they only work on packaging.


-- 
Guillaume Cottenceau

RE: [Cooker]GET READY FOR A DISCUSSION: Software

2000-05-30 Thread Don Head 

Just trying to pry into Mandrake's inner workings to appease my curiosity..

How do packages get updated?  Are package mantainers required to keep on
freshmeat or application mailing lists for the packages they're responsible
for?  Are there dedicated package maintainers for pieces of software?

I ask all these things because I have noticed that it seems like Mandrake is
depending on posts from users to alert them to package updates.  This seems
a little re-active, rather than pro-active, as a Linux distribution should
be.

I know that everyone at Mandrake gets enough e-mail.  I'm subscribed to
Cooker, and I read them all, and that's enough to keep me busy all day.  I'm
sure you guys have more than you can handle already.  Maybe what's needed is
some dedicated package maintainers, who DON'T need to read Cooker and other
mailing lists, and just concentrate on keeping up to date on software.  I
sit here and watch Chmouel, Pixel, and countless others work their butts off
to fix things, and they seem to do a lot of the package stuff, too.  I think
there needs to be a division between technical support on the Cooker list,
and general package maintainence.

Maybe you need just one person to read the Cooker list and forward msgs to
the appropriate people, so that each of you isn't flooded with the entire
list and all responding on the same questions/problems.


Also, and I've seen this mentioned before..

Get Bugzilla, or some other bug tracking system, online!  I couldn't imagine
the amount of time (and e-mail!) that would be saved by making the Cooker
list a development mailing list (which is what I thought it was), rather
than a bug tracking system (which is what I really think it is).

*cough* Red Hat *cough* uses Bugzilla, and I must say, it's one of the most
awesome bug tracking projects I've seen.  You can submit a bug by Red Hat
version and package ("Wow, a bug in the initscripts package in 7.1 beta 3,
let's report it").  The person assigned to that package will be notified
("Hrm, okay, here's the bug.. okay, I wrote a fix, here it is").  Anyone
else reporting that bug can be redirected to the first message ("This is a
duplicate of that other bug, and it's already fixed.  Not gonna spend any
time on it, just redirect him to the old bug" "Wow, thanks, you guys are on
the ball!").


A few ideas to toss into the ring..

Don Head
Linux Mentor
Wave Technologies, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[AIM - Don Wave][ICQ - 18804935]
[IRC - EFnet, #WaveTech, Don-Wave]


-Original Message-
From: Chmouel Boudjnah [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2000 6:14 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: cooker
Subject: Re: [Cooker]GET READY FOR A DISCUSSION: Software


"B. K. Barley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>   I don't know how long 7.1 has been frozen, but I'm highly irritated
with
> some versions of software that is shipping with the beta.

almost one month ? yep yep we trying to do quality software :).

-- 
MandrakeSoft Inchttp://www.mandrakesoft.com
In travel.--Chmouel

Re: [Cooker]GET READY FOR A DISCUSSION: Software

2000-05-28 Thread Hoyt 


- Original Message -
From: "Chmouel Boudjnah" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "cooker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2000 7:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Cooker]GET READY FOR A DISCUSSION: Software


> "B. K. Barley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > I don't know how long 7.1 has been frozen, but I'm highly irritated with
> > some versions of software that is shipping with the beta.
>
> almost one month ? yep yep we trying to do quality software :).
>

I suggest you allow your final candidate to "rest" for a week to allow all
mirrors to be updated and all active beta testers to download and install.
It would also be helpful if you would post a "We really need these
[little-used or unusual] features/hardware cheked out. Who can do it?"
message.

Hoyt

Re: [Cooker]GET READY FOR A DISCUSSION: Software

2000-05-28 Thread Chmouel Boudjnah 

"B. K. Barley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>   I don't know how long 7.1 has been frozen, but I'm highly irritated with
> some versions of software that is shipping with the beta.

almost one month ? yep yep we trying to do quality software :).

-- 
MandrakeSoft Inchttp://www.mandrakesoft.com
In travel.--Chmouel